YouTube is the second largest search engine that has more than billions active users around the world. Anybody can watch YouTube videos on various gadgets including Android, Windows, iOS, Mac or anything else. All you need is good data connection for buffer free YouTube experience. Earlier this year, while launching the Android One smartphones in India, Google also announced that it would be launching an “offline feature” for Indian users. Today, the company has launched the feature for Android and iOS users that essentially lets you download YouTube videos and play them back in offline mode when you don’t have data connectivity.

YouTube has their dedicated application for almost all major mobile platforms including Android, iOS etc. The mobile app helps users to have a better user experience whereas the mobile version cannot provide. On the other hand, you know that Google has launched Android 5.0 or Android Lollipop along with two new Nexus devices. Anyway, although, Google launched Android Lollipop more than a month ago, but most of their apps are not updated with Android L UI.

However, Google’s official YouTube app was one of them that is not updated with the Android L UI. But, fortunately, the YouTube app has been updated with the latest Android makeover just couple of day back. Actually, that was an unofficial leak. However, now, you can download the official YouTube app from Google Play Store that comes with Android Lollipop looks.

YouTube Offline Playback: The videos are available for offline playback. Users can only download the videos through YouTube app via mobile data or Wi-Fi. A video downloaded via the YouTube offline feature will be available for viewing within 48 hours. Users have to sync with YouTube to watch the videos. The videos are available for offline playback only through the YouTube app, and can be downloaded via mobile data or Wi-Fi.

While watching a clip on your smartphones or tablets, an icon will appear under the video frame to let you know that you can download it for later viewing. You can then select the quality in which you wish to grab that particular video. Once that’s done, it will be downloaded and entered into the Offline section of the app from where you can view it even when you’re not connected to the web.

Notably ads will be downloaded alongside the video, and these will be refreshed once the user re-syncs to YouTube. The re-syncing process allows YouTube to calculate metrics such as views and ad data. The move is aimed at increasing the use of YouTube as offline viewing will allow users to download and store more content when they get access to a good internet connection, and view it at a later time. It will also improve the viewing experience eliminating buffering due to bad or intermittent connectivity.

“In a country like India, the future of the Internet is mobile. 85 percent of the Internet population will connect to the Internet with a mobile phone before any other device,” John Harding, Vice President of Engineering at YouTube said.

“Already, we are seeing over 40 percent of our traffic in India come from mobile devices, and we want to make sure we are making YouTube as enjoyable as possible for these mobile-first users. By launching this offline experience on YouTube in India today, we have to help people move past the challenges of data connection, speed, and cost to enjoy a smooth, buffer-free version of YouTube,” he added.

Meanwhile, Google has also updated the YouTube Android app bringing material design (a new visual design implemented with Android 5.0 Lollipop). The YouTube team says the updated app for Android puts more focus on videos and channels, and looks more like the other Google apps. It also now includes search filtering to make it easier to find videos.